Sarah Goodyear

Today, a bit of a Transatlantic love on the Streetsblog Network, as Copenhagenize posts about a new paper on how to increase bicycling rates from Rutgers urban planning prof John Pucher. Copenhagenize's Mikael Colville-Andersen writes:

Anyone who regularly uses a bicycle for transportation in the United States knows the feeling -- the nagging anxiety about what will happen when you arrive at your destination, especially if it's a place you've never been on your bike before. Will there be a place to lock up? Will security guards be helpful or will they hassle you? Will your bike be there when you get back? Or will it be gone -- not stolen by a common thief, but clipped by the building management or by the police?

A few exciting technology-related items have come over the transom in the past couple of days. 

In honor of International Walk to School Day, we're going to look at a post from Minnesota's Twin Cities about what you might call Wouldn't It Be Great If You Could Walk Your Kid to Preschool Day.

Our first user-generated slide show, on bike traffic, was a lot of fun. (See it here.) This time out, we're looking for pictures that show cars -- the most inefficient form of transportation -- hogging public space.

The city of Detroit has gotten a lot of attention recently, most of it lamenting how far its fortunes have fallen. Time magazine has even sent reporters to live in a Detroit neighborhood for a year, covering it as if it were a foreign country -- which, in a sense, it is. Foreign at least to the American self-image of infinite growth and expansion.

The other night I was talking with a friend who wants to give up his family's car but is having trouble convincing his wife that they can do without it. I assured him that it really is possible, given his circumstances -- they live in New York, close to several subway lines, and just a couple of blocks from a garage that is well-stocked with Zipcars. 

Last week we put out a call to readers and members of the Streetsblog Network for photos of bike traffic. We got a ton of great responses, and in the slide show below, you'll see what our readers are seeing around the country: bikes in action, and in growing numbers.

Today one of our Streetsblog Network members picks up on some ideas in the latest New York Times article about distracted driving, which focused on workers who multitask in their cars using a variety of electronic devices. The Chicago Bicycle Advocate, which is written by a personal injury attorney, says that only the threat of liability for employers may be able to influence this frightening trend:

Following up on something we wrote about a couple of weeks ago -- the absurd lack of public transportation options for fans heading to the flash new Dallas Cowboys Stadium -- we have a post from Streetsblog Network member Extraordinary Observations: